Inspiration is Spreading
When I wrote about Kobe Bryant’s sudden and devastating death in January, I had no idea that the sadness, confusion, devastation and helplessness I felt would be themes for 2020; not only are we on the fast track to 200,000 COVID-related casualties (and beyond), staring down what might be the most critical electoral season this country has ever seen, being battered by natural disasters that grow in scale and violence every year, and seeing and feeling a constant stream of state-sponsored murders fueled by racism and deeply rooted and angrily defended systemic inequality, but it seems like almost every day we lose a beloved public figure before we are ready to say goodbye. I’ve seen a slogan circulating on the internet: “2020. Shit show, would not recommend.” Needless to say, it’s been a tough year so far.
In their living and at their best, our icons inspire us, challenge us, allow us to dream, give us respite and laughter, prompt us to think, comfort us and unify us. Because of these things, we often deify these people, projecting onto them an assumption of both the infallibility and immortality that our social contracts, fables, and stories have convinced us is the only way to live and inspire. In their deaths, that image is shattered, and these people who turn out to just be humans like us remind us of our own fragility, of our own tenuous hold on life. They become proxies for the sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness that is stimulated in us by a pandemic causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, by the impending death of our democracy, by the possibly dying Earth (by our own hands) on which we live. If a legend like Kobe Bryant can die in a helicopter crash, if a generational actor and truly good person like Chadwick Boseman can die of something so seemingly mundane as cancer (compared to Thanos, I mean), what hope is there for the rest of us?
The hope is in the recognition and embrace of that very mortality that repeatedly shatters our incomplete and naïve worldview, and in both the celebration and good use of our own newly realized limited time, however long it might be. It is in the act of remembering the way we felt watching our icons, being near them, being inspired by them. And it is in the paying forward of that feeling to someone else. Kobe said that “the most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do,” and to me this is the essence of what we are meant to learn from the people who are showing us the way (and, equally powerfully, oppositionally from those who are most definitely not, which is a discussion for another day).
Chadwick Boseman was an icon who portrayed icons. He brought Jackie Robinson and James Brown and Thurgood Marshall to life for those of us who are too young to have lived within, and inspired by, their greatness and their flawed humanity firsthand. And he was a superhero portraying a groundbreaking superhero, privately fighting cancer while publicly showing millions of people, of color and not, an example of black excellence, strength, love, poise, kindness, vulnerability, ingenuity, and compassion on the biggest stage. If you get a chance, find the commencement speech he gave at Howard University. It is clear that this was a man who accepted the gift and responsibility of his incarnation and was doing his best to live in a way that inspired others to do the same. Sure, he was an actor. But he was also an activist, brother, husband, friend, and mentor. He also probably had flaws, too; don’t you also have them? Don’t I also have them? Don’t answer that…
We are all human, all flawed. That is not something to be ashamed of, it is something to own, to take responsibility for, to use as an opportunity to practice self-compassion and self-improvement and humility. The trap in deifying the Kobe Bryants and Chadwick Bosemans and our other icons both living and not, is that we remove the thing that allows them to truly inspire us in a way that is productive: their humanity, and the expression of that humanity. If they are gods, how can we ever hope to share in their example? Why try? But if they are humans like us – extraordinary, perhaps, but also flawed, and also full of love and light and darkness and vulnerability and complexity and more – then can’t you and I also do some small thing that maybe becomes a big thing for someone else like our icons did and do for us?
The potential scope of inspiration is bigger for people in the public eye than it is for most of us, and with that outsized influence comes a much more visible and acute responsibility, as well as the capacity to act on it on that larger scale. But that doesn’t mean that you or I can’t also be an inspiration with our vulnerability, our resilience, our compassion, our poise, our humility. Yes, we need to actively work on these qualities, but it is important to understand that these are not characteristics reserved for superheroes. Rather, they are simply human qualities that exist somewhere inside each of us. It is fun to dream of greatness, of spectacle, of winning, of material success, and most of us do it. What I am coming to understand is that those are not the right things to be dreaming of, not the things that will move me forward. Those are the “deity” fantasies that – for me – create more paralysis and eventual frustration than inspiration. Focusing on being the best, continually evolving version of myself that I can be allows me to grow and inspire others through that growth, which in turn inspires me to keep pushing forward more reliably and more resiliently than any fame or fortune or hero status ever could. And sure, for me and maybe for you too, the scope isn’t that big, but unlike fame, money, trophies, and victories, inspiration isn’t a competition.
We are alive during a uniquely challenging time in history. A global public health crisis, a social and institutional reckoning, an environmental inflection point, and in this country, an election with generational ramifications. Add to that the highly convenient and also brutally unforgiving presence of technology in our lives, and what you have is a world where confusion, illness, and despair are on the rise. I look around and some days it makes me want to just sit and cry. Sometimes I do, because you can’t heal it if you don’t feel it. Other times – and more often these days, as I work on staying mindful of the good and the gratitudes – I recognize that there are people both “out there” and in our communities doing humble, focused, courageous, inspired and inspiring work.
Sport is one of the worlds that I live in, one of the lenses through which I view and contextualize what I see around me, and one of the places I look to for inspiration. Right now, in the midst of so many crises, I am inspired daily by the courage and humanity of athletes. Athletes are coping with the loss of seasons, the postponement or loss of opportunities, and the abrupt end of careers. They are dealing with the shakeup of their identities and with the emotional and social projections of an on-edge public. And among all that uncertainty, there is such inspiration. We have seen it at times throughout history. Jesse Owens in 1936. John Carlos and Tommie Smith in 1968. Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Colin Kaepernick, Maya Moore. These athletes and groups of athletes made the decision to reclaim their humanity, courageously bloodying themselves by being the first ones through the wall. Tasha Cloud, Jaylen Brown, LeBron James, Bubba Wallace, Lewis Hamilton, Naomi Osaka. The Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Detroit Lions. They were inspired, and in turn they have inspired; what began as moments has become a movement.
What we are seeing now is being described as an age of athlete activism, and it is that, but not only that; it is also a time of conscious and intentional and collaborative reclamation of the complexity of human identity in a group of people that have been first idolized (infallible, immortal) and then reduced to numbers. Points, rebounds, batting average, goals scored, touchdowns, dollars of revenue. These are not human qualities, and they are not what make us – or our icons – who we or they are, despite what the Systems tell us. In the WNBA, the NBA, the NCAA, and other leagues across sport, “athlete” is being actively transformed from a primary identity to just one of many personal characteristics (often not the most important one); the complex human self is being reclaimed, and the inspiration is spreading faster than any virus. The courage and fortitude and relentlessness and compassion that is being embodied by these athletes is inspiring to me. I don’t have to be one of them to pay it forward, and if I can do it for even one person, then despair and hopelessness are replaced by joy and purpose. That is my Why. What’s yours?
Originally published on August 29, 2020